There's no single "good" VO2 max — it depends heavily on your age and sex, and reference charts differ between sources. Here's an honest, peer-reviewed percentile breakdown, and why the numbers you see elsewhere might not match.
VO2 max measures cardiorespiratory (aerobic) fitness — how efficiently your heart, lungs and muscles deliver and use oxygen during intense, sustained exercise. A higher number generally means better aerobic capacity, but it is a single physiological measure, not a complete picture of health. It says nothing directly about strength, flexibility, body composition, or overall wellbeing, and on its own cannot diagnose any medical condition.
Estimate your own VO2 max using the Cooper run, Rockport walk, or heart rate ratio method, and compare it to the reference data below.
Open the VO2 Max Calculator →The most credible modern reference data comes from the FRIEND registry (Fitness Registry and the Importance of Exercise National Database) — 7,783 directly lab-measured VO2 max tests from healthy US adults aged 20-79, published peer-reviewed by Kaminsky, Arena and Myers in Mayo Clinic Proceedings (2015). The table below shows the percentile spread by decade and sex.
| Age | Sex | 10th | 25th | 50th (median) | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20-29 | Men | 32.1 | 40.1 | 48.0 | 55.2 | 61.8 |
| 20-29 | Women | 23.9 | 30.5 | 37.6 | 44.7 | 51.3 |
| 30-39 | Men | 30.2 | 35.9 | 42.4 | 49.2 | 56.5 |
| 30-39 | Women | 20.9 | 25.3 | 30.2 | 36.1 | 41.4 |
| 40-49 | Men | 26.8 | 31.9 | 37.8 | 45.0 | 52.1 |
| 40-49 | Women | 18.8 | 22.1 | 26.7 | 32.4 | 38.4 |
| 50-59 | Men | 22.8 | 27.1 | 32.6 | 39.7 | 45.6 |
| 50-59 | Women | 17.3 | 19.9 | 23.4 | 27.6 | 32.0 |
| 60-69 | Men | 19.8 | 23.7 | 28.2 | 34.5 | 40.3 |
| 60-69 | Women | 14.6 | 17.2 | 20.0 | 23.8 | 27.0 |
| 70-79 | Men | 17.1 | 20.4 | 24.4 | 30.4 | 36.6 |
| 70-79 | Women | 13.6 | 15.6 | 18.3 | 20.8 | 23.1 |
VO2 max declines fairly consistently with age. In the FRIEND cohort, the average rate of decline was about 9.2% per decade for men and 10.3% per decade for women across the 50-year span from the 20s to the 70s.
At every age, men's median VO2 max is meaningfully higher than women's in the FRIEND data — around 27% higher on average. Some of this gap reflects differences in body composition (men typically carry more muscle mass relative to body weight, which VO2 max is expressed per kilogram of) and haemoglobin concentration, which affects oxygen-carrying capacity. The absolute gap narrows somewhat with age: about 10 mL/kg/min in the 20s versus about 6-7.5 mL/kg/min by the 70s.
If you've compared VO2 max charts from different websites, you've probably noticed the numbers don't match. This isn't necessarily an error — different reference datasets use different populations and measurement methods:
The lesson: a VO2 max chart is only as good as the population it was built from. We use FRIEND on this site because it is peer-reviewed, directly measured rather than estimated, and drawn from a relatively large and recent US sample — but no chart, including this one, should be treated as a universal, definitive standard.
The FRIEND registry reflects people referred for exercise testing — a mix of fitness levels, not specifically elite athletes. Highly trained endurance athletes routinely score well above the 90th percentile shown here; elite male distance runners and cross-country skiers have recorded laboratory VO2 max values above 80-90 mL/kg/min, far beyond typical population ranges. If you're comparing your result to an elite athlete's publicised VO2 max, you're comparing against a highly selected, heavily trained outlier group, not a general population reference.
Good VO2 max values fall on a spectrum that shifts substantially with age and differs by sex — there's no single number that applies to everyone. Peer-reviewed FRIEND registry data gives the most credible, directly-measured US reference values available, but even that differs from other reputable datasets, so treat any chart as descriptive context rather than a fixed target.
What is a good VO2 max?
It depends entirely on your age and sex. Peer-reviewed FRIEND registry data puts the median (50th percentile) VO2 max for men aged 20-29 at about 48 mL/kg/min, and for women the same age at about 38 mL/kg/min, both declining by roughly 9-10% per decade after that. "Good" is best judged against your own age and sex group, not a single universal number.
What is a good VO2 max for a woman?
Using FRIEND registry data, the median VO2 max for women is about 37.6 mL/kg/min at ages 20-29, 30.2 at 30-39, 26.7 at 40-49, 23.4 at 50-59, 20.0 at 60-69, and 18.3 at 70-79. Values above the 75th percentile for your age group are well above typical; below the 25th percentile is below typical for directly-measured lab data.
Why do VO2 max charts differ between sources?
Different datasets use different populations and different measurement methods. FRIEND registry data is directly measured via lab gas-exchange testing in a large recent US sample. Older Cooper Clinic reference values were estimated from treadmill workload rather than directly measured, and tend to read higher for most age groups above 30. Norwegian cohort studies show higher values again. None is "wrong" — they reflect different populations and methods.
Does VO2 max decline with age?
Yes, in both men and women, FRIEND registry data shows an average decline of roughly 9-10% per decade in adulthood. The absolute difference between men and women narrows somewhat with age, from about 10 mL/kg/min in the 20s to about 7.5 mL/kg/min in the 70s.